Includes bibliographical references (pages 255-259) and index.

Everett Ruess was twenty years old when he vanished into the canyonlands of southern Utah, spawning the enduring myth of a romantic desert wanderer. It was 1934, and Ruess was in the fifth year of a quest to record wilderness beauty in works of art; their value was recognized by such contemporary artists as Dorthea Lange, Ansel Adams, and Edward Weston. From his home in Los Angeles, Ruess walked, hitchhiked, and rode burros up the California coast, along the crest of the Sierra Nevada, and into the deserts of the Southwest. Acclaimed environmental historian Philip L. Fradkin goes beyond the myth toe reveal the realities of Ruess's short life and unexplained disappearance and finds in the artist's heralded afterlife a lonely hero who persevered -- Book jacket.

SACFinal081324